Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan today completed 10 years in office, becoming the first non-Congress chief minister in the state to do so, even as his tenures saw challenges like the Vyapam scam and defeat in recently-held Lok Sabha bypoll.

With his two back-to-back terms, Chouhan broke the record of his predecessor and senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, who ruled the state for two consecutive years from 1993-2003.

The BJP has organised a celebration later to mark the completion of the period. The 56-year-old BJP leader was sworn-in as the state's chief minister for the first time on November 29, 2005, after the tumultuous run of the BJP-government that came to power in 2003 which then waded through political turbulence by having two chief ministers in a short span of two years.

Chouhan first got elected as MLA in 1989-90 from Budhni Assembly seat and was later forced to contest the Lok Sabha polls from Vidisha against his wishes. Since then he represented the Vidisha Lok Sabha seat for five consecutive terms till 2004.

Besides the Vyapam scam, the Opposition also tried to embroil him in a dumper scam, but he got a clean chit in it from the court.

Referring to the Vyapam scam, Chouhan said, "Though probe is going on in the case, we have tried to make a transparent system of admission and recruitment after we came to know that there was no system in place for the same".